Philly Teacher

About Me
I am a teacher, and a lifelong learner. I began teaching in Philadelphia in 2004 and have since then been a Science teacher for grades K-6 and I am currently a Technology Teacher for grades K-8 in computer lab and with a netbook cart. Students in my lab complete units on research, digital citizenship, [...]
Presentations
I have presented at a number of conferences, mostly on the topic of technology in education. I presented to a packed house at the annual PETE&C conference on the topic of Building the Ideal Computer Lab Curriculum. It was a hands-on, hour long session, attended by computer lab teachers from all over the K-12 [...]
Work With Me
I am available to consult on a number of topics. I have over 5 years of experience as a K-8 Science educator in both school and summer program settings as well as 5 years experience as K-8 Technology Teacher. I hold a Master’s Degree as an Instructional Technology Specialist. I also have experience presenting at [...]
Published Work
These are places, aside from blogs, where my work has been featured. ASCD’s February 2011 issue of Educational Leadership: Three Schools for the 21st Century, written in collaboration with Gerald Aungst I also co-wrote a chapter with Dean Shareski in Chris Lehmann and Scott McLeod’s book, What School Administrators Need to Know About [...]

For those of you who may have been wondering where I’ve been for the last few months, I can tell you, I haven’t been resting. Over much of the last three years I have taken on endeavors outside of Philly, but I have spent this past year entrenched in the tech community in my home city. Much of the motivation for this was my dream of bringing a student hackathon to Philly.

This weekend, that dream becomes a reality.

Back in August, I invited Andrew Coy and Shelly Blake-Plock to come share their STEM League project with a group of highly engaged and respected educators and technology folks here in Philly. After the presentation and discussion at the Science Leadership Academy, I then went on a 2-3 month binge of all things technology in Philly. Along the way, I joined up with Donna Murdoch to co-organize the Philly EdTech Meetup, connected with Tracey Welson-Rossman of TechGirlz, attended a Philly Tech Meetup, and a GiveCamp, co-hosted an amazing panel at the Science Leadership Academy, attended TechCamp, and co-hosted a Philly Tech Week event with Technically Philly, and attended (more like crashed) a few Code for Philly Workshops.

Over this time, I was able to recruit 4 amazing Philly educators and 4 technologist mentors to work with 5 student teams from district, charter and independent schools. I was lucky enough to pair up with an old friend (who also happens to be an event-planning guru) to host the event at New Foundations Charter School in Northeast Philadelphia.

Our first meeting of teachers & mentors was on April 7th at National Mechanics, and from there we hit the ground running. I am so thankful for the passionate, energetic and dedicated teachers and mentors who have been working hard with their student teams these past few weeks and I have been elated to watch each link to student work come through the @STEMLeaguePHL mentions. (A big HT to Ivan Chang for showing us JS Fiddle!) You can see what student have been working on by checking out the Student Teams page of the website.

This Friday night, students will meet their clients, local non-profits, to discuss the design and content strategy for their new site. Then all day Saturday, students will work side by side with the non-profit to build an attractive and functional website using WordPress. The websites will be judged by three well-respected members of the tech community, Mark Headd, Youngjin Yoo and Yuriy Porytko, and the winning team will win year of free hosting from the DHF. In addition, we have volunteers coming out to help with coding, set up and overall operations (feel free to stop by, wink wink).

Thanks to Comcast, we will be able to purchase food for all of our hard working teams and volunteers, and thanks to NFCS, we will have access to all if the space and technology we’ll need. Technically Philly has also been supportive, running an article on WebSLAM during Tech Week. Of course, none of this would have been possible without the guidance of the Digital Harbor Foundation in Baltimore.

It has been quite a ride over the last few months, but I feel closer to the heartbeat of Philly than ever before. After spending three years connecting to educators across the globe, it has been rewarding & inspiring to see the amazing work being done here in my home town.

If you’ve got some time this weekend, stop by and check us out!

WebSLAM: Philadelphia’s first hackathon for high school students

When: May 11th, 9:00am-7:00pm
Where: New Foundations Charter School, 4850 Rhawn St, Philadelphia, PA 19136

I am thrilled to have been invited again to Discovery Education’s Beyond the Textbook discussion at Discovery’s offices in Silver Springs, MD. Last year’s event was an inspiring and energizing experience, and I am excited to continue this conversation a year later. A lot can change in a year. One of the biggest disruptors I see [...]

I have been blessed to have spent the last 3-4 months working with eleven 7th and 8th graders as they create projects for the annual PA Middle School Computer Fair. We are now only a couple of weeks away from the Fair and I can’t help but reflect on the way my role working with [...]

Right now my students and I are in the middle of a research project. One of the most important things that we are delving into right now is honing our skills in evaluating websites for accuracy and bias. We did the traditional exercise of evaluating the Northwestern Tree Octopus and then I gave them the [...]

I recently heard a conversation on the BAM Radio Network entitled, “Teachers, Tattoos, Piercings and Provocative Dress: Fashion Anarchy vs Fashion Fascism?” As someone who has spent a large portion of her life as a non-conformist, I definitely connected with the topic. First, let me say that I believe that the way teachers dress for [...]

Z loves everything about the planets, the stars, black holes, and anything Space-related. He can rattle off facts and is a very bright child. He is also disorganized, can lose focus easily and works fairly slowly. In a nutshell, he doesn’t “play school” well, but in a different learning environment, he’d thrive. T is bright [...]

It’s that time of the year again. The closing of another year, time spent celebrating with friends and family and often a time when we pause and reflect on many things. During Thanksgiving we harken back to the celebratory feast in Plymouth Colony and give thanks for all we have. In a month or so, [...]

A little over a month ago, fate brought me and Jonathan Leung from University of Pennsylvania together at a PhilaSoupevent. I was sitting next to Jonathan at the event and when I found out he was a Computer Science major, I began to share the details of an exciting project I’ve been working on. We [...]

I am always proud to be a Philadelphia educator as the annual Educonconference approaches. It’s a magical time of year when educators from across the US gather to explore deep pedagogical questions, network, laugh and enjoy some of the best restaurants on the East Coast (no bias!) What makes Educon so special? Size Educon, unlike [...]

On Saturday, I had the wonderful opportunity of leading a workshop on Digital Citizenship at the National Liberty Museum here in Philadelphia. One of the most important conversations to have at the start of the day is about the meaning and importance of citizenship in general. We spent the morning coming up with a common [...]